"Customers can take advantage of Altera's programmable solutions when designing next-generation PCI Express products and bypass the effort and investment of traditional ASIC development," said Steve Mensor, senior director of IP marketing at Altera. "Prototyping with a Stratix II FPGA, testing and debugging the FPGA prototype in-system and migrating to a HardCopy® II structured ASIC is a guaranteed low-risk solution that allows customers to quickly move to high-volume production."

Advantages of PCI Express
As the successor to PCI, the PCI Express bus standard provides higher performance, increased flexibility and scalability for next-generation systems, while maintaining the software compatibility with existing PCI applications. The complete x4 PCI Express solution from Altera and Genesys Logic provides the bandwidth required for various test and medical, networking, storage, imaging, office automation and other embedded applications.

Altera's portfolio of proven PCI-SIG-compliant FPGA solutions for x1, x4 and x8 PCI Express applications, using both external PHYs and embedded transceivers, is further extended with this x4 offering. The tools customers need to easily implement PCI Express in their applications include configurable PCI Express IP cores and development boards for endpoint, bridge, switch and root complex functionality. Genesys Logic offers the GL9714 along with a complete line of PCI Express compliant products targeted for a variety of applications. The GL9714 is an ideal solution for FPGA applications and has been successfully deployed in numerous customer designs.

"The combination of Altera's PCI Express IP and Stratix II FPGAs plus Genesys Logic's PHY chip delivers a fully operational PCI Express x4 solution as promised," said Scott Rust, director of research and development at National Instruments. "Leveraging this solution will help us expand the benefits of PCI Express as a comprehensive solution for the test instrumentation community by driving products compliant with the next generation of the PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) standard, PXI Express."

Pricing and Availability Altera Stratix® II FPGAs are available in volume today from authorized distributors. Volume prices in mid-2007 start at $25 for the EP2S15 device in 25,000 unit volumes. The Genesys Logic GL9714 PCI Express PHY is currently sampling with full production devices available in the third quarter of 2006 from the company and its authorized distributors. Pricing for the Genesys Logic GL9714 PCI Express PHY will be $20 for volumes of 25ku. More information on Altera's IP core and Stratix II FPGAs can be found at www.altera.com/pciexpress and www.altera.com/stratix2. Information on Genesys Logic GL9714 PCI Express PHY can be found at www.genesyslogic.com.

About Altera Altera's programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate, and win in their markets. Find out more at www.altera.com.